Maryland Nursing Practice Act

The Maryland Nurse Practice Act outlines the scope and standards governing nursing practice in Maryland State. A key area covered in the Act is new nursing graduates, with the Act defining nursing graduates as individuals who have successfully completed either licensed practical nursing education or the registered nurse program (Maryland Board of Nursing, 2020). The Act stipulates that such individuals may be employed as nursing graduates for a maximum duration of 90 days after graduation or when they receive their examination results. During this period, nursing graduates may perform certain nursing functions. The Act further states that individuals who have completed their LPN or RN education can also get employment as certified nursing assistants once they have been certified by the Maryland Board of Nursing.

There are a number of professional associations that could be used in examining standards of practice in Maryland. One such association is the Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland, whose mission is “to advocate and ensure sound policy and regulatory foundation that protects and enables nurse practitioners to provide accessible, high quality healthcare to the fullest extent of nurse practitioner scope of practice” (Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland, n.d. para.1). For nursing graduates, this means that the Maryland Nurse Practitioner Association will act as a valuable source of information on the conduct required of them.

Every state is responsible for developing laws and regulations to govern nursing practice. This implies that there could be identifiable differences in nurse practice Acts of different states. Nonetheless, a key similarity is that in all states, the nurse practice Act exists to regulate nursing practice and ensure that nurses perform their duties and behave in a professional manner. Additionally, most states have a single body that regulates nursing practice, although there are some states- such as Louisiana and California- where different categories of nurses are regulated by separate boards (Huynh & Haddad, 2020). Whichever the case, the regulatory boards all fall under the National Council State Boards of Nursing (Huynh & Haddad, 2020). In other words, much as there may be significant differences in nurse practice Acts for different states, they are all governed by one body.

References

Huynh, A. P. & Haddad, L. M. (2020). Nursing Practice Act. StatPearls Publishing. Available from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559012/

Maryland Board of Nursing. (2020). Nurse Practice Act. https://mbon.maryland.gov/Pages/nurse-practice-act.aspx

Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland. (n.d). Advocating for Maryland nurse practitioners since 1992. www.npamonline.org/